


Santa Baby

by Emily_F6



Series: Penny Parker Prompts [37]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bio daughter Penny, Female Peter Parker, Gen, Irondad, Penny Parker - Freeform, Tony Stark is a Good Dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:15:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28019877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emily_F6/pseuds/Emily_F6
Summary: Tony takes Penny to have her picture taken with Santa.  Things don't go as planned.
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Penny Parker Prompts [37]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1899553
Comments: 13
Kudos: 257





	Santa Baby

Tony shifted his weight from one foot to the other, tightening his arms around the little girl in his arms. At his side, Rhodey sighed, staring down at his phone. Checking his watch, Tony rubbed his hand over Penny’s back, glancing down at his daughter to see if she was still asleep. The girl had whined a little when Tony had originally gotten into the line, cursing under his breath and wondering if Pepper would accept a photo of their little girl in the lab with Santa photoshopped in. It would be a lot less work. Besides, Penny loved his lab. Although he’d only had custody of the three year old for less than nine months now, Penny loved to sit in her playpen in the lab and build with her blocks. Tony was glad she liked it, since it was a lot easier to keep an eye on her in there when he was working. Still, after a little comforting, the girl had plopped her head on his shoulder and had fallen asleep.

Since his daughter had come into his life, Iron Man had been moved to the back burner. He still went out when he could, the responsibility he felt nagging at him when he went too long between patrols, or when Rhodey would tip him off about suspicious activity that he didn’t want to call in the military for. But between his little girl and Pepper moving in with him, he felt like his life was...full. Full in a way that it had never been before. Penny needed him. Pepper needed him. And he found himself stopping by the bar less and less, until he finally told JARVIS to lock it up in the fear that Penny would somehow get a hold of something in there.

“Tones, are you sure about this?” Rhodey asked as they inched forward a few steps, and Tony flinched when a little boy gave an ear-piercing scream up ahead. 

“Pepper said it would make the perfect Christmas card.”

“I thought last year’s Christmas card was perfect.” 

Tony snorted as he remembered last year’s card...a photo of Dum-E with a Santa hat perched on his claw. “That was some of my best work.”

“So why don’t we get some dinner and do that again? We can even put Penny on his back. We’ll put a Santa hat on her. You know Penny loves Dum-E. And Pepper will come around.”

Tony was tempted. But he could see the front of the line. They’d been standing there for almost half an hour and all he wanted to do was get the damn photo and take his kid and his best friend to dinner. Then he could get her into bed at a reasonable hour and have an evening with his now-happy girlfriend.

Shit, he thought with a sigh, when had he gotten old?

Penny stirred on his shoulder as they moved toward the front of the line, looking up at him with the huge brown eyes that were so like his own, and he smiled, tapping her on the nose and getting a sleepy smile. “There you are. Did you have a good nap?”

She nodded, resting her head on his arm and kicking her feet a little restlessly. In the months since she’d come to live with him, she had spoken very little, just the occasional mumbled word for the first few months, then she’d come out of her shell more and more as the weeks had gone by. Now she would speak to him in her soft, three-year-old, half-understandable language, but even those times seemed few and far between, especially when she was sleepy or anxious. Now seemed to be one of those times as she scanned the store they were in, relaxing a little when she saw her uncle Rhodey. 

He’d taken her to the doctor about it once, asking if this was normal, or if she needed to see someone or talk to someone or...or something. He knew almost nothing about children, but he knew that they’d usually be talking by now. The doctor had explained that it probably had to do with the trauma of losing her mother...of being in the car during the crash. She hadn’t been injured that night, but Tony had still felt his heart pounding when he’d picked her up from the hospital, learning about and meeting his child all within a few hours.

“We’re almost done, baby,” he assured her, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “What do you want for dinner?” 

She brought a fist up to her eye and shrugged, looking restless as she fidgeted in her arms. They moved up another couple of inches and he prayed that she wouldn’t choose now to throw a tantrum. There had been a couple already, and although they were pretty mild, he still felt like a failure every time his little girl threw herself onto the ground and sobbed, shoving him away every time he tried to comfort her. “We can get mac and cheese. Or pizza,” he told her, rocking her a little. “Or...how about a cheeseburger? You love cheeseburgers!”

They took another step forward, and they were nearly to the front of the line. Rhodey chipped in then, helping to distract her. “After dinner, maybe you can play in the play place. You know they have some slides. You love slides.” That was true. The little play place in the mall had a couple of slides, ranging from the tiny foam one for babies to a big one for the older kids, and Penny had been down them all. She didn’t seem to fear heights, and loved climbing up as high as she could. It was something that worried Tony, as more than once she’d tried to climb up onto the refrigerator, pushing a little step stool over and scurrying her way up onto the kitchen cabinets. 

Thankfully he’d caught her every time, swinging her into his arms before she could fall. She always laughed, never taking him seriously when he told her that it was dangerous...that she could fall. So Tony had ordered JARVIS to make sure she was never in the kitchen unsupervised. 

“Can we play?” Penny asked her father, tugging on his shirt and blinking a few times, looking more awake.

“Sure we can,” Tony agreed, stepping to the front of the line. “But first we’re going to get a picture with Santa.” 

Penny furrowed her brow at this, looking over at the mall Santa. He was a nice looking older guy in a red suit with a full white beard and the obligatory belly, a little girl giggling and tugging on the fake beard. Mall Santa just smiled at her, patting her cheek and asking what she wanted for Christmas. Penny watched all of this with a frown before looking up at her father in confusion. Penny had asked him a few weeks ago if Santa was real during her bedtime story, which had revolved around Santa and his reindeer. Without really thinking about it, Tony had told her that Santa was just a pretend story, realizing later that the expectation was that he’d lie...still, he didn’t regret it. The last thing he wanted to do was lie to his kid. He’d never really been a big fan of the whole ‘Santa’ thing anyway. Still, he could see why she was confused.

“This nice man is pretending to be Santa,” he whispered, hoping she didn’t repeat that in this store full of children. “We’re going to get your picture with him because Pepper thought it would be fun.” He realized it was a dumb explanation, but it was their turn to get their picture taken, and Tony stepped forward, Penny in his arms. She glanced up at him, fingers tightening on his jacket. “Okay baby, you’re going to sit on his lap and tell him what you want for Christmas, okay? Can you say hello to Santa?”

“No...no…” The whimper stopped him in his track, halfways through the motion of placing her on the man’s lap. “No…” 

“It’s okay. You’re just going to sit on his lap for a second.”

The toddler shook her head again, a distressed cry escaping as she started to twist away from the man who started to secure her on his lap. “No! Daddy! Please, Daddy! No!”

Tony froze as he held the girl, heart stuttering in his chest at the sound of her heartbreaking sobs. The other parents in line watched him, some looking irritated, others pitying. “It’s best if you just leave her for a minute. She’ll settle down,” one mom told him with a small smile. Just the thought made his heart clench painfully and he lifted the girl back into his arms, shaking his head. “Okay. Okay, baby. You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he murmured, holding her close and pressing his lips to her hair as she cried into his shoulder. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’ve got you.” 

“Sorry about that,” Rhodey apologized to the attendant dressed like an elf, and then Tony hurried to carry the little girl out of the store. She had her arms wrapped around his neck, lip trembling, and after a moment, Rhodey put a hand on her back. 

“Hey, Tones. I’ve got an idea.”

A week later when the cards they’d ordered arrived in the mail, Tony was in the lab with Penny, the little girl on his lap as they made a baking soda volcano. Pepper held the envelope as she entered the room, one card in her hand as she came to stand in front of the two of them, one eyebrow raised. 

“Just in time!” Tony cried, bouncing the giggling toddler on her lap. “We’re about to make the volcano explode.” 

“Tony? What is this?” She held up the card, showing Penny’s bright, smiling face as she sat on Santa’s lap. The Santa in question (obviously Rhodey in a red suit and white beard, a pillow shoved down the front of his shirt) held her close, his cheek resting against hers, and Tony grinned.

“Those came out really well. Look, Penny. We have our Christmas cards!” 

The little girl was more excited about the volcano, and Pepper sighed as she reached for the vinegar, feet kicking as she struggled. But after a moment, her face softened and she placed the cards down, making sure they weren’t in the danger zone of their volcano. “A volcano, huh?”

“It’s gonna ‘plode!” Penny cried, and Pepper leaned over, pressing a kiss to her cheek. 

“Really? Well, I’ve got to see that.” She met Tony’s eyes, leaning forward to give him a quick kiss of his own, and then the little family watched as the volcano bubbled over, the red, foamy ‘lava’ spilling out onto their pretend village. 


End file.
